Chapter 41

With agonizing groans, Alpheios’s body floated up.

Before his body even tumbled on the floor, his opponent kicked him again.

Making a strange puffing sound, Alpheios finally fell to the floor.

Step, step.

A man, so big he looked like an enraged beast, approached him relentlessly.

“You, you bastard… agh!”

His long legs drew a sharp arc.

A boot filled with force kicked the reckless prince in the stomach.

Thud.

With a dull impact, Alpheios vomited violently what was inside him.

Before he could catch his breath, a rock-hard fist grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up.

The swift and brutal violence continued for a brief moment more.

If no one had intervened, it surely would have ended badly.

“Ahem.”

As Alpheios fainted, a man standing at the end of the hallway cleared his throat.

“That’s enough. Going any further wouldn’t be self-defense anymore.”

Everything.

Riorem stopped moving.

Only then, as if blocking the crowd’s gaze, the maids lined up along the hallway approached me.

With coordinated hands, they tightly wrapped my hair again.

After placing a new veil over my head one last time, the maids stepped back.

It was then that Riorem, who had been silent the whole time, finally spoke.

“Is this acceptable?”

“Well… if you argue well enough, it should be fine. After all, you did touch his ‘private property.’”

The crown prince shrugged.

It was almost a promise that the situation would be handled.

“I see.”

With a cold voice, Riorem released his grip on Alpheios’s collar.

The bloodied body collapsed onto the marble floor.

“Then I’ll be going first.”

With that notice, Riorem lifted me up and headed straight to the carriage waiting area without looking back.

The crown prince did not stop us.

After returning to the mansion, I was locked in the bedroom again.

On the surface, it didn’t seem much different from before, but in reality, it was not the same.

Every day someone was dragged away in front of Riorem’s bedroom door.

Even though they knew that lingering around would get them publicly beaten and kicked out of the castle, intruders kept appearing.

The servants who had been managing the mansion for years were also severely punished countless times.

Almost one per day.

If even the bedroom where I could not hear any news from outside was like this, it was impossible for the outside situation to be quiet.

After pressing the maid, the rumor she told me roughly went like this:

“Prince Alpheios was unilaterally beaten by Riorem Velik. Probably because of Riorem Velik’s slave.”

“But that slave has red hair. Just like the princess of Peroa.”

The rumor quickly spread, resulting in an increase in both official and unofficial visitors to Dynamis Castle.

There must be talk within the castle as well.

Riorem had many enemies, so many would pick fights and demand the truth.

It had become a difficult situation for him in many ways.

Was my guess wrong?

I looked up silently at the figure sitting on top of me.

Just as I was fighting the drowsiness that came after finishing my meal, a woman entered the bedroom.

“…Teume, huff.”

The moment she called my name, the hand gripping my neck tightened.

Only shallow breaths escaped through the narrowed airway.

The more I struggled, the stronger Teume’s grip became.

Thump. Thump.

As my breathing slowed, only my heartbeat echoed in my ears.

When my vision completely darkened, a stiff voice was heard from beyond:

“Just die here.”

Cold skin stuck wetly to my neck.

“If you’re gone, it’ll be fine somehow. You came this far; it won’t end like this.”

Squeeze.

As if to stop a single breath, Teume tightly strangled my throat.

It was heavy.

Stifling.

And painful.

The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t breathe, but that the weight on my neck hurt.

The more I forced myself to inhale, the greater the pain became.

I felt a burning heat flush my face sharply.

‘This won’t do anymore.’

I couldn’t hold back and grabbed Teume’s long hair, pulling it hard.

“Ah!”

Startled by sudden pain, Teume’s arm twitched.

I didn’t miss the chance.

Reaching beside the bed, I grabbed a book.

She tried to twist my arm when she realized, but it was already too late.

I struck Teume’s head with the hard corner of the book.

With a scream, Teume collapsed.

The noise must have been loud because murmurs started outside the bedroom.

‘What a nuisance.’

I rubbed my neck and stood up.

At this level of commotion, Riorem must have heard it too. I just had to handle things until then.

“What are you doing by yourself, Teume? How do you plan to deal with what comes next?”

“Next? Why should I care about that?”

“I can’t be the one to serve Riorem. If you disappear, it’ll be a problem.”

Teume’s face twisted at that.

“If only you disappeared, everything would be fine…!”

“If that’s what you want, you should have persuaded Riorem to abandon me. It’s your fault you haven’t succeeded yet.”

I kicked Teume out of the bed.

This is Riorem’s bed after all.

Teume lunged at me again, but it didn’t lead to a fight like before because the door behind the partition suddenly swung open.

Teume ground her teeth when she saw the man behind the door before I did.

Riorem hadn’t been himself lately.

Maybe it was because his workload suddenly increased.

After allying with the crown prince, he had to show himself in many places.

Besides, everyone wanted to get the truth from him.

Even people in small gatherings scratched at his nerves.

It was also exhausting to pressure the craftsmen introduced by the crown prince.

He’d never bought such luxurious items before, so even placing orders was unfamiliar.

Making blankets and winter coats from wolf skins was especially difficult.

He had to meet with the tanner, leatherworker, and tailor in rotation.

But… probably the one who pushed him the hardest was Alpheios tou Arete.

Since returning to the castle, Alpheios officially remained silent.

He didn’t reprimand the incident in the hallway where he was beaten unilaterally or whether Riorem’s slave was indeed the princess of Peroa.

Yet in front of Riorem, he talked endlessly.

‘I thought you couldn’t even leave the bedroom because there might be a child. Ah, maybe Cherni spat everything out because he refused to accept a lowly bastard.’

Gritting my teeth at the mocking voice I recalled.

Everything about Alpheios irritated me, but even his rustic tone had a refined accent that annoyed Riorem.

It reminded him all over again that the madman came from noble blood.

Alpheios and Chernea were, so to speak, equals from birth, calling each other by pet names.

Slaves who didn’t even know their parents’ faces couldn’t even approach them.

Even now, after Chernea was brought down to her place, bloodline and status still shackled Riorem.

Compared to feeling that reality, nothing else was particularly painful.

Even the fact that the retainers found Chernea burdensome.

‘Still, I can’t just ignore their resistance.’

In some way, it was necessary to make them accept the situation. To maintain power without foundation, one had to make that much effort.

Riorem rubbed his tired eyes inside the carriage leaving the banquet hall.

The moment he entered the mansion, he sensed the tense atmosphere sharply.

It had been noisy for days, so nothing especially disturbing should have happened, which puzzled him.

‘No way.’

Some intuition popped into Riorem’s mind.

He climbed the stairs as if possessed. Ignoring servants who stealthily avoided him, he headed for the room where Chernea was.

When he opened the door leading to the bedroom, he was met with a situation beyond his expectations.

A thick silence hung inside the bedroom.

Riorem quietly looked around the room.

There were bright red handprints on Chernea’s neck, and Teume was sitting on the floor.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened.

“Teume.”

“…Yes.”

“Anything to say?”

Teume bared her lower teeth.

“…No.”

“I see.”

Riorem drew his sword from his waist.